"No News From Auschwitz"

"No News From Auschwitz"

by A.M Rosenthal

Multiple Choice

What is the author’s purpose for describing the sunny weather, playing children, thriving trees as “the most terrible thing of all”?

• a. To help the reader picture the setting where the essay takes place.

• b. To illustrate the theme that life and goodness can return to an evil place.

• c. To help the reader understand how horrible conditions were at Auschwitz.

• d. To emphasize that the world has forgotten about the atrocities at Auschwitz.

d. To emphasize that the world has forgotten about the atrocities at Auschwitz. 

"It all seemed frighteningly wrong, as in a nightmare, that at Brzezinka the sun should ever shine or that there should be light and greenness and the sound of young laughter. It would be fitting if at Brzezinka the sun never shone and the grass withered, because this is a place of unutterable terror" (Rosenthal 1)

People are visiting Auschwitz as tourists and are not understanding the full extent of the horrors that happened there.

Multiple Choice

Which pair of words best describes the tourists’ reactions to their experiences at Auschwitz?

• a. calm and denial

• b. shock and shame

• c. reverence and reflection

• d. confusion and fear

b. shock and shame

"One visitor opened his mouth in a silent scream simply at the sight of boxes - great stretches of three-tiered wooden boxes in the women's barracks." (Rosenthal 2)

"The guide tries the door - it's locked. The visitor is grateful that he does not have to go in, and then flushes with shame" (Rosenthal 2)

Multiple Choice

What is the tone of the statement "There is no news from Auschwitz"?

• mournful and sad

• tired and bored

• outraged and critical

• casual and indifferent

The tone of the phrase "There is no news from Auschwitz" is outraged and critical

"In 1958, when Rosenthal was the New York Times correspondent in Warsaw, Poland, he visited the concentration camp at Auschwitz. At that time, fourteen years after the camps were liberated at the end of World War II, mention of the atrocities of the concentration camps had virtually disappeared from American newspapers. There was “no news” to report from those sites, and Americans seemed all too willing to put the ugly memories behind them" (Rosenthal 1).

What do the quotation marks around "no news" imply?

Open Ended

Why is the title of this article ironic?

"There is No News From Auschwitz"

"Four million people died here, the Poles say. And so there is no news to report about Auschwitz." (Rosenthal 2)

The deaths and suffering of this many people needs to be talked about and shared. The author is "calling out" those who choose to forget or ignore what happened at Auschwitz.

Multiple Choice

What is the main idea?

• Auschwitz still exists, but the world is forgetting the horrors that happened there.

• Auschwitz was a terrible place where millions of people suffered.

• Tourism is problematic and makes us loose our humanity.

• Auschwitz should be closed to the public to preserve its histroy.

Auschwitz still exists, but the world is forgetting the horrors that happened there.

"There was “no news” to report from those sites, and Americans seemed all too willing to put the ugly memories behind them. Rosenthal’s piece for the New York Times, “No News from Auschwitz,” served as a powerful reminder of the dangers of forgetting what had happened in the death camps" (Rosenthal 1)

"To have visited Auschwitz and then turned away without having said or written anything would somehow be a most grievous act of discourtesy to those who died here" (Rosenthal 2)